


Night Time Blues

by wright_back_atcha



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Censored Swearing, Gen, Nightmares, apologies in advance if the censoring makes it a little clunky to read, child neglect reference but not explicit, dadvid, teddy bear, uh i'm not good with tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wright_back_atcha/pseuds/wright_back_atcha
Summary: Max has a nightmare. Da(d)vid is there to help. (Ft. Mr. Honeynuts)





	Night Time Blues

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written fanfiction in a few years, but Camp Camp has inspired me. This isn't very good, but well, here ya go.  
> Also, I don’t swear, so all the swears in this are “censored”, so to speak.

Max had never in his life, felt this utterly and completely  tired.

It probably had to do with the business of the day; he spent most of the morning and afternoon in and out of social service offices with David and his social worker, coordinating foster care paperwork. For the most part, Max just stood around, not really able to do anything. But the entire process of officially being handed over to David and away from his parents was, for some reason, really exhausting.

It had been two months since camp ended-an official two months since his parents dumped him at the God-forsaken, poor excuse of a summer camp and never came back to pick him up. Efforts to contact them had been fruitless; they have moved, somewhere, and no one could trace them ( _They must have taken lessons from Cameron Campbell himself_ , Max had thought resentfully). Seeing as how Max had no relatives nearby who could take him in, Max was stuck with the only person who had ever seemed to give a s—t about him in his life; his camp counselor, David.

Max  walked through the door to David’s apartment, rubbing his eyes and yawning. David noticed, and looked towards Max, worried.

“You okay, Max?” David asked quietly. Max looked up at him, then turned away and scoffed. Why the f--k was David asking him if he was ok, when the camp man himself had bags under his eyes?

“Fine, David.” Max mumbled. He intended it to come out a lot shaper, but fatigue had dulled his boiling anger into a low simmer.

David smiled, then stretched his long limbs before letting out a sigh. “How about we get dinner started then? Spaghetti okay?”

Max shrugged, then plopped himself down on the small couch on the living room. He grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels idly, not really focusing on what was on the screen. He settled on some action movie, and watched with only mild interest. His eyelids seemed to weigh tons, and the random shooting, fighting and flashy explosions from the television could barely hold his attention.

The smell of dinner coming from the kitchen, however, did manage to pique his interest. His tiredness was quickly replaced with hunger, and he found his eyes flickering more towards the kitchen than towards the TV screen.

A few more minutes passed before Max heard the ding on a timer. “Almost ready!” David called cheerfully from the kitchen. Soon they were both seated at the small kitchen table, mouths watering over their plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

Max tried to pace himself at first-really, he did-but he could never quite control himself when it came to David’s cooking. For most of his life, Max’s parents hardly, if ever, made him anything. Most of the time Max had to survive of freezer burnt microwave dinners, cans of soup, or boxes of stale crackers. In comparison, the spaghetti was divine.

“You like it?” David asked, smiling.

Max looked up from his plate to glance at David, then quickly looked away. “It’s okay, I guess.” He mumbled, forking more spaghetti in his mouth.

David chuckled, then went back to his own meal.

Within the next hour, Max was lying in his bed in the guest room of David’s apartment. The room was mostly bare, save for Max’s bags, but David had promised they could decorate it together later. Max  buried his face further in his pillow as he thought of David’s stupid smile, thinking about starting a stupid DIY project together to liven up his room. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to that, at all. Really.

For once in his short life, Max found himself able to fall asleep fairly easily. The normal insomnia that plagued him seemed to have disappeared, for this night at least. Before long, Max’s breathing became steadier, and he found himself drifting off into sleep.

\---

David’s eyes were also feeling particularly heavy. The day with social services had drained him as well. David had no idea how difficult it would be to take in a kid. Providing for him was one thing, but dealing with the system was another. Due to David taking care of Max over the summer as a camp counselor, he convinced Max’s social worker to let him begin fostering Max, although he hadn’t quite completed all the training courses yet, and he barely scraped by on the income requirement. He still had a lot of paperwork to fill out too, not to mention the stipulation that he find an appropriate sitter for the times David wouldn’t be home. He also had to start preparing for Max’s first day of school next week…

David sighed, and sank deeper into the couch. “I really hope I don’t screw this up…” He mumbled to himself. He decided to stay up for a few more hours, doing some research on child care on his laptop, while another movie played in the background. After a while he couldn’t fight the sleepiness anymore, and headed off towards his room.

Before he reached his room, however, he stopped outside of Max’s door. For just a moment, he thought he heard something.

David pressed his ear against the door and listened for the mysterious sound he heard before. Sure enough,there it was again. It was faint, as the sound was muffled through the door, but he could hear it: it sounded as if someone was shuffling around in Max’s room, maybe even pacing. David listened closer, and though he heard sniffling as too. A scared whimper, sniffling, then more shuffling.

Panic burst in David’s chest; his first thought was that Max had somehow gotten hurt. Although he normally knocked to respect Max’s need for space, he couldn’t help but fling open the door in a rush.

“Max! Max, what’s wrong?” David shouted, glancing around the room frantically. His eyes landed on Max, who was currently throwing every last piece of clothing out of the drawers and onto the floor of his room. David stood into the entry of the doorway, stunned, before he found his voice again. “Max?”

He seemed to have heard him that time. When Max turned around, David stepped back in shock.

He had never seen Max like this before. The boy’s cheeks were stained with tears, his eyes red and puffy from obvious crying. His hair was a tousled mess, and his chest heaved up and down with long, shuddering breaths. His eyes shone with fear, but once he realized he was looking at David, the all too familiar anger and irritation returned.

“Leave me the f—k alone, David” He screamed, throwing what appeared to be an old t-shirt at David with all the anger he could muster. David caught the shirt easily.

Concern ever growing, David stepped into the room and looked about the mess strewn about. “Max? What is going on? Is everything okay?”

Max let out a low growl of frustration. “Would you stop asking me if I’m okay every 5 seconds! What the hell is wrong with you?” He replied, obviously trying to deflect the question.

“Well…it’s because I care about you Max. I’m concerned, and I just…” David hesitated. “I just want to do what’s best for you. Besides,” He said, placing his hands on his hips. “I’ve think you’ve given me reason to be a little concerned tonight.”

Max went quiet for a moment, glaring at David-though the normal heated anger in his eyes just wasn’t there. He let out a long sigh, then mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?” David asked, stepping closer to Max; but not too close, still wanting to give Max some space.

“I can’t f---king find it.”

“Find what?”

Max grew quiet again. “M-my bear.” He stammered out quickly. “I can’t find Mr. Honeynuts” He felt his face grow hot, and he couldn’t bear to look David in the eyes.

David crouched down to be at eye level with Max. “Hey, it's okay. I’m sure we’ll find him. You brought him with you when you came to stay with me, right?”

“Of course!” Max replied. “There’s no way I’d leave Mr. Honeynuts in that f---cking hellhole with my parents.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to look for him together! Two pairs of eyes are better than one, right?’ David offered with a smile. Max rolled his eyes, not willing to admit that he was grateful.

So, it was at 2am that the pair decided to search the apartment for the missing bear. While cleaning up Max’s room, they looked over his space with a flashlight. Next was David’s room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and finally the living room. As time wore on, Max grew more worried. The determined look that had settled onto his face earlier had slowly worn away, until he was back in the anxious state David had found him in.

“Where do you last remember seeing him, Max?” David asked, as they both sat down on the sitting room couch.

Max thought for a while, his brow knitting in frustration. “The last I saw him was in my room…” He trailed off, trying to remember exactly _where_ in his room. It had been a hectic few days.

They sat in silence for a few moments, before David spoke up. “Hey Max…why were you looking for Mr. Honeynuts so late, anyway?”

Max stiffened next to him. Rather than replying, the boy pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly, his green eyes turned away from David.

David hesitated. He didn’t want to pry, yet he already had a feeling what had made Max so frantic. This wasn’t the first time Max had a nightmare since living with him, but it was definitely one of his worse ones. Should he bring it up? Comfort him some way, but how?

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.” David said, figuring it was best not to push so much. Max was still very much closed off and wary of sharing too much, even though he had warmed up since Parent’s Day.

Max nodded. To fill the silence, David turned on the television. They sat awash in the neon blue glow of the television, watching a nature documentary. Almost an hour passed, with David slowly nodding off, but Max on high alert. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight without Mr. Honeynuts by his side. So for the time being, he watched the nature documentary drone on. Ironically enough, it was about bears. The topic kept him thinking about his own bear. He hadn’t slept with him in a couple nights, not feeling the need to. He did, however, like to have Mr. Honeynuts nearby. He used to hide the bear under his bed in the suitcase he used to carry his stuff from his parent's house, until David had found him with it one night. Although it wasn’t worth it to hide him anyway, Max still felt the sting of embarrassment every time he remembered that David knew.  He had hid him away for so long that he'd gotten sort of grimy,  and then-

“Ah!” Max exclaimed aloud. David jolted from his sleep, turning to look at Max.

“What what is it? What’s going on?” David asked groggily.

“I remember! I left Mr. Honeynuts in my pile of laundry. Because he was dirty!” He said excitedly, springing up from the couch in an uncharacteristic show of enthusiasm. “David, when did you last do laundry?”

“Hm…About two days ago…I think I do remember seeing Mr. Honeynuts on top of your clothes. When I brought the laundry back he was there, before I started putting away clothes. But I didn’t see him in the end, so I thought you had taken him.”

“When did you last see him!?”

“Um…last time was when I brought the laundry basket from the laundry room and into the living room. But we didn’t see him in here...” David said sadly.

A thought suddenly occurred to Max. Duh! Why didn’t he think of this before!?  He grabbed David’s flashlight, then looked underneath the couch.

And there was Mr. Honeynuts, splayed underneath. Max couldn’t  reach him fast enough, but his short arms couldn’t quite make it. David reached under the couch, grabbing it for him and handing it to him.

“He must have rolled under there when I was doing the laundry.” David said, relieved. “Ah, I’m sorry I didn’t notice Max.”

The boy was too busy clutching his bear to his chest to reply, burying his face in Mr. Honeynets head. For a moment, David realized he looked like an actual ten-year-old; no cynicism, no bitterness or anger-just the pure relief and vulnerability of a kid who found his beloved teddy bear.

Max looked up at David, mumbling a quick thanks. David smiled; somehow Max being embarrassed made him even seem more child-like. “No problem, Max. Let’s get back to bed, huh?” David suggested, reaching for the remote to turn off the television.

Max nodded before heading towards his room. David walked with him there, and looked over the room one more time to make sure they had gotten everything put back in place.

“Goodnight, Max.” David said, before turning to leave.

“Um, David. Wait.” Max said. David turned back around to find Max sitting up in his bed, looking suddenly nervous.

“Can you…uh…can you leave the door open? Just a little?” He asked, his voice small. David’s heart felt heavy. He hated seeing Max this scared; it was a good thing they found Mr. Honeynuts when they did.

“Sure, thing Max,” David replied softly. “And just so you know, I’m just down the hall. If you ever need me, don’t hesitate to come get me, okay?”

“Yeah…Thanks David.” Max replied, a small smile crossing his lips.

“Goodnight kiddo”

“Night David.”

David walked to his room, and settled down onto his own bed. He knew fostering Max would bring challenges, but if he could help him feel a little bit safer…well, then that just made it all the more worthwhile.


End file.
